Social Skills Training for Adults

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This is what I am learning for me. I have to build up scripts and scenarios and learn to generalize them. I am pretty decent right now with the scenario whereby a coworker flies in from another site and stops by to see me.

My need is to build up comfort and scripts for any of the scenarios where I want to be able to deploy small talk skills.

According to my shrink, small talk is just a natural thing for him and many NTs. IOW, they do not have to pre-practice or even consciously have scripts.

'zactly how I felt when he told me about it. Actually I accused him of lying (he later laughed at me for that) first then went out to see for myself. And that is when I wrote that post from WA where I was sitting in a restaurant watching these NT people doing the small talk thing,.. From everything I could see, he was right. Of course my observations are as good as any more severely affected autistic person's can be... (my disclosure there) Still, I have to believe him. He swears it is true and I see nothing that makes me think he is lying. As much as NTs swear they hate small talk, the get a little charge out of learning about strangers in this trivial way.

One of the ways I cope with small talk is getting people to talk about themselves and hoping they say something I can relate to, interest-wise. It works sometimes, but I am sure it is nowhere near ideal. I don't really get a charge out of learning things about people though (big surprise) and it is really weird to me that people enjoy learning trivial things.

The last time I tried getting someone to talk about herself, it turned out she was AS too. She was basically trying to script small talk back at me, too. It was kind of funny, though. Three of us were at that party and we all ended up talking to each other and away from the rest.

Er, anyway. back to my actual response: My therapist said she hates small talk, but she constantly tries to engage me in it, and a few times she's made a point of prompting me to tell her things about myself, which clearly makes her happy - this is related to the "positive" stuff I mentioned elsewhere.

Oh yeah... He had to keep reminding me last week to ask questions about him. I soooooo don't care about him or his personal life. I know that is considered "rude" but I really don't. He is my shrink for cripe sakes. In thinking back on our session last week I made a statement RE my material and some of the stuff I was working on. It was actually more of a monologue... Anyway at the end of it I said that I was now finished and wanted to go into the game before the session ended. He said he had some stuff to reply to my statements and ask me if I wanted to hear what he was thinking. I said I did not so we went into the game instead. Looking back on that I am thinking... whoa. That is sooooo Aspie of me. I am freak'n textbook some days.

Just 3 more hours to go until the next session. I am prepping myself to be "good" this time. Areas where I will try to go will be to discuss what happened with my tornado conversation (how to get out of that sort of thing alive) and also I have my boss now insisting that we do small talk all the time. It is getting a bit awkward now for me because we have already done all the scripts I know and we are just repeating the same stuff. Last week he had an IPad 2 in his hands and I asked him questions about that (because technology is my special interest) and he complimented me on my small talk skills. He was really, really happy with me. I had to explain to him that it doesn't really count if it is a "special interest" that we are talking about. I need more ideas about how to do small talk with someone you talk to once a week or so.

You can save yourself sooooo much headache if you prompt them for personal information. Most people will go on and on about themselves with the smallest provocation. All you need to remember to do is look like you are paying attention, pick up enough words to mimick back so they know you were paying attention and remember to occassionally smile and nod and give small supportive sentiments. This is MUCH easier than trying to construct a conversation. I just let people talk themselves out until they excuse themselves. I'm embarrassed to admit I learned this only in the past few years - in a corporate job - and I am STILL amazed that it works so effectively.

Try it out on your coach! Has he mentioned anything personal you can ask about? A safe question is always - "What did you do this weekend?" Let him talk it out. ask one or two questions about what he says... 'Where'd you go? How was the weather?" Make a supportive comment like 'That sounds cool. Sounds like you had a good time." Watch his reaction. He will be HAPPY.

Good experimenting Dr. Pavlov!

OMG! The weekend talk was the one we had that I sooooo struggled with. He is my shrink. I did not feel it was appropriate to ask him what he did for the weekend. So perhaps that is part of this whole picture. I am having a hard time with the pretend aspect of his game... Also... I really do NOT care. My daughter (the AS one) also gave me the advice that you just did (almost word for word). She has this whole routine down to where she thinks about something interesting and smiles and nods while they are talking. We LOL'd about that in our little facebook chat one night. But even though I technically understand the concept, I cannot bring myself to do it for some reason. I will have to work on whatever it is that is blocking me here. I honestly don't think about it. I just freeze up still. Crap this is really hard....

Just remember THAT tactic is exactly how I was able to work with the boy at the store... (The overly friendly one) But it exhausted me to do it. Yep. I need to work on whatever it is that is blocking me from deploying the green cards. THAT seems to be key here.

This is how I "hide" in an NT world. I am damn good at this game. But it is sooooo draining.

I completely understand that 'what conversation is appropriate with whom' thing. I have rather stringent self imposed rules on what you do and do not talk about with specific types of people. Some of those rules I learned thru trial and lots and lots of error. Some of my rules are completely arbitrary. I benefit because I am not intimidated by someones rank, position or title - I'm never star struck, or awe struck. People are people to me. But, at the same time, 'authority figures' are not people to discuss personal matters with. Ever. Even if they ask in a friendly, get-to-know-you kind of way. I get the doctor thing - the level of professionalism you expect of them precludes a 'personal ' relationship. Where you and I consider details of our weekend to be personal - NT's consider it more general knowledge. 'Good' stuff usually isn't 'personal' - it is something they like to share. 'Bad' stuff is personal - dirty laundry - that's the stuff they don't want to hear.

I know one of my stumbling blocks was my level of interest. I have that overwhleming problem with 'lying'. Pretending to be interested, to me, is 'lying'. I'm not being truthful with this personal whom, I feel, is expending their time, energy and emotional input on someone who JUST DOES NOT CARE. I wouldn't want someone to do it to me so it feels entirely wrong to do it to someone else. I think even NT's do this - some acknowledge it in spectacularly rude fashion at times - but I also think, on some level, they are all interested in each other on a much more basic, instinctual level.

They may not be personally interested in what someone is saying BUT by politely listening and interacting they are building that clan of people, who will do the same for them, and who will rally around each other come mammoth hunting season. I wouldn't be that caveman preparing for the hunt - I'd be the caveman painting the epic hunt on the walls deep in a cave - by myself. This 'social lying', in essence, seems more like a deeply imbedded survival technique than anything else. I think we just happen to have other survival techniques that don't include social interaction. doesn't mean we can't learn - even if we struggle with WHY everyone's weekends are so damn interesting.

No doubt, it is hard - but all things worth doing usually are! And I have total faith in your tenacity.

Or wondering why spears don't fly straight and figuring out that a straight staff and a balanced spear point works better ...

I would also really struggle with this ...

OOOH - the weather thing! The difference there is that HE started the conversation. That puts you in the defensive position. You need to answer his questions - thus converse - and deal with all the potential pitfalls therein. When you go on the conversation offensive - start the conversation - they are now playing defense and they are GOOD at it and like to keep going and going and going. Starting the conversation puts you in a better position - its easier to guide it when you open up the topic of conversation.

There is a natural flow that is assumed when people enter a conversation. Like when a couple dances. Someone leads and someone follows. The person who steps up and takes the lead is naturally followed in a conversation. Your partner usually gives up the lead to you and lets you direct it. In small talk, it can save you alot of energy to take that lead position.

Awesome session today and we hit on all of these points. I read your posts just before going in and so he and I were able to really dive into the topics.

We started the session by going over my relationship and friendship models a bit. This allows him to figure out how I operate and to speak to me in my Language. We also discussed severity levels of ASD people and how my view on this may be different from many of the kids he works with since I am so very affected (AKA severe side of the spectrum) in social skills area. He even told me that I am rude quite a bit but he doesn't chose to tell me about it when it happens because he wants to work on other stuff first. (oh whoops) Apparently I suck at this small talk thing.

So after that level-setting he pulls out a sheet of paper from his social skills file and asks me if I am ready for new data. I say I am but wasn't feeling all the confident. He hands the paper to me and starts to explain that this piece of paper is his high-level view of how NTs receive small talk. It was basically the same stuff that I learned in my micro-inequeties class at Intel a few weeks back. The paper said that this sort of communication is like a team sport. (I liked his anaolgy of Improv better but whateveh). He then said that in order for me to be a good team player that I need to be "active" in the conversation which included things like, listening, gestures and appropirate noises (Not sure RE this but think this is nodding head and saying, "uh huh" sorts of stuff) and then keeping positive/friendly feelings about the person with whom I am conversing. I LOL'd at that one and of course asked for a detailed explanation. He gave it to me but I don't get his answer well enough to log it. I will add that if I can come up with it later (after playing back the session some more).

The paper also said that the way I play in this sport is important because it will give the NT person a friendly or good feeling about me. He went on to explain that if he is rude to a cashier (for example) that person may make his life a bit harder later when he goes back to that store. He explained that NTs keep "people files" and put data about that person in their people files. I groked that concept fully but was shocked to hear that anyone had the brain capacity to keep trivial data about random people (RE the cashier) in their harddrive. He assured me that they do that.

Next we talked about reasons why I have such a hard time using green cards or asking questions. As you guys all are saying.... THAT is key, yet I do not do it. I used my excuse that I could not step into the role playing/pretending thing. He sort of went with that but then when the topic moved to my boss, he asked me what sorts of people file information I had on my boss. I had to confess that I never asked my boss any questions... That our small talk was more about him asking me stuff with the exception of my IPAD 2 conversation recently... Okay so... The facts are that people are just NOT important to me. So now what do we do? Then we went over the tornaodo conversation with the kid at the store where I did try to ask questions. He told me that my questions where too specific and helped me to form questions that were more general.

The Doctor then had a great idea. He gave me 6 green cards and he took 6 red cards. He then told me 5 things about him that were "interests". He then said I can pick whatever subject I wanted but my job was to ask 6 questions about that topic. I chose "hiking" as the topic and laid down the green card. I asked him where he had hiked before. He named 3 places... Grand Canyon, Somewhere in S. Oregon and Sweden. I asked him how many days he hiked when he went out. He answered about 4 nights. I asked him how many miles he hiked in a day (card 3 gone). He answered about 10 miles on a good day. I asked him the elevation/gain of his hikes (card 4 down) He stopped the conversation there and redirected me. He suggested that I needed to potentially cue off his answers. So for example when he mentioned the 3 places he hiked an NT might ask a question about one of those places. I thought a little while and the asked him some random ? about the place he hiked in S. Oregon. He answered that it was weird because it was part desert but by the ocean. I then just got stuck because I was trying to cue off his answers but did not want to get detailed. Net is that we made it through the next two cards with his help.

And that was all we had time for. The good news is that I will be able to ask my boss for 3-5 topics that are of his interest and next time he insists on small talk I am gonna try this form of more general questioning. We'll see how that all goes.

He's absolutely right. To use a computer analogy, it's possible that NTs have something like a file compression program that makes this data not take up very much space on the hard drive. If you are thinking the cashier can't possibly remember you from last time....she does. This can work to your advantage. Just as cashiers (or anybody) keep data files on those who are rude to them, they also keep data files on those who are nice to them. I am always nice to cashiers and they in return keep nice factoids about me in their brains and will tell me if an item I buy frequently is on sale this week (because they remember what I buy frequently) or other little nice things. Since NTs are always in data collection mode about people rather than about other things, the system is formatted for easy and compact storage and retrieval of this data.

The funny thing is that for all my lack of interest in other people, the small talk and the tedious conversations I have with them I still seem to remember every single detail about them. Yet NT's, for all their apparent interest and enjoyment in chit-chat seem to remember nothing.

When I do have a conversation with someone and pay attention, they are amazed when you remember those details in a later conversation. People have actually expressed feeling flattered that I remembered details from a conversation held nine months prior. The flip side of that - I end up feeling rather unimportant to them because they can barely remember what we discussed last week more or less nine months ago. Very very different ideas of what makes a good friend...

Oh, yes. I have a fairly good memory for conversations, details, etc. I remember most of what people tell me, although I don't have any special status for things they tell me about their social lives.

And a lot of people seem to not remember these things. It seems like some let go of the details and build up a gestalt idea based on past experiences without referring to the experiences so much. I hold onto details. This means I tend to remember people by specific incidents rather than an overall experience, so whether I have good or bad feelings might depend on what I recall. Not splitting - I mean I'm not "They're evil" or "they're on a pedestal." And I'm aware I do it so I try to resist it.